Riots

If badminton was the World Game there would probably be just as many riots as there are now with soccer. The graceful swoop of the goose-feathered shuttlecock would not calm the madding crowds.

If only badminton had the power to invoke the passion, it could rival the semi-religious fervour that soccer induces. If only. Then we could blame badminton for all violence in sport and stop making soccer out to be evil.

Soccer is, globally, inextricably linked to violence in people’s minds. But it’s not soccer’s fault. Soccer just happens to be the medium for the message. It is the excuse, the scapegoat.

Continue reading "Don’t blame the beautiful game for riot shame" »

Dear Comrades,  It is sadly not surprising that the freedom-fighters in London have been denounced as “rioters’’ by the right-wing media machine.

These brave revolutionaries have risked their lives or at least other people’s lives to create a new socialist utopia.

But, as always, the dark forces of capitalism have sought to crush their spirit and incarcerate their bodies _ at least for a few hours until they make bail.

Continue reading "An idiot’s guide to freedom fighting" »

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,” the English lit great Samuel Johnson famously once said.

A whole bunch of people seem to be tired of London life lately. Or at least intent on mindlessly smashing the great city to pieces.

The past 72 hours haven’t been pretty. The Guardian is calling it the Battle of London. We’ve seen pictures of double-decker buses overturned and engulfed in flames. Looters smashing their way into stores. Rioters hurling planks of wood at bobbies. Buildings that survived two world wars destroyed by rioters.

Continue reading "The great ire of London" »

Last week The Punch posted a piece on a fantastic news picture of a couple kissing amid a riot. Then the proverbial hit the fan, with all sorts of rumours - including a suggestion it was the scene of a sexual assault - so we closed the piece until we could work out what was going on. Well now we know (sort of) and the piece is open again, here. And here’s a great look at the situation from a new contributor, Jen Vuk.

Against the tarnished backdrop of the escalating violence in Vancouver last week a startling image of a couple lying on a littered and damaged street and seemingly lost in their own tantric moment caused a meltdown of the most spurious kind.

Within hours of going online the image not only went viral, but had its own Twitter account and its first photo-shopped meme showing the couple on a freeway. While the riot, caused by the city’s hockey team’s championship loss, which left 150 people injured, property and shops destroyed and led to almost 100 arrests had but all been forgotten, our curiosity in the then mystery duo seemed to grow by the nanosecond.

Continue reading "Love, PR, and other catastrophes" »

Canadians are a placid bunch. Usually. Where ice hockey is concerned, primal passions arise. All kinds of primal passions, as the pic below shows.

What happened yesterday in Vancouver was shocking. The local NHL team, the Canucks, lost the final match of the Stanley Cup and riots soon engulfed the city. Vancouver’s top cop blamed “anarchists and criminals”, but it appears regular hockey fans were involved too, given there were over 100 arrests.

Vancouver has never won the Stanley Cup, the ice hockey equivalent of baseball’s World Series. So locals were entitled to feel frustrated after leading the seven match finals series 3-2, then blowing the last two games.

But were they entitled to riot? Of course not. If you ask us, these two had the right idea. While their city burned, they fiddled. With each other.  Do you approve? And can you come up with a better caption for this wonderful photo than Ant’s effort? Pucker up, Punchers!

Continue reading "Friday’s Dilemma: What were these two thinking?" »

‘As a result of industrial action this exit is closed.’ The unwelcome tiding is stuck across two massive doors in King’s Cross underground station with what appears to be yellow-and-black crime scene tape. It is not what London’s put-upon commuters want to see.

It is the first week of December and a freezing London is enduring its fourth tube strike in three months, as unions fight plans to cut jobs. Students have staged rallies and campus occupations to protest planned university tuition fee increases. The police have taken to holding protesters in cordoned-off areas for hours on end. This being Britain, the tactic is called ‘kettling’.

And cuts to the defense budget mean Britain’s flagship aircraft carrier will be axed, together with the fighter jets that took off from it. But Britain will be allowed to use a French aircraft carrier, in a deal one commentator dubbed the ‘entente frugale’. The French vessel in question – the Charles de Gaulle – recently broke down.

Continue reading "Betrayal: Why young Brits now hate the Lib Dems" »

Welcome to Friday @ The Punch

On this day in 1968 a peaceful demonstration in Mexico City erupts into what is now called the Tlatelolco massacre. Hundreds of protestors were gunned down by government police and army forces.